As state unveils plan for Hix Bridge fix town says more work is needed

Wednesday

Jan 11, 2017 at 3:06 PMJan 11, 2017 at 3:08 PM

Jeffrey D. Wagner Correspondent

WESTPORT — The state Department of Transportation has unveiled a state-led and financed repair plan to the troubled Hix Bridge Road bridge.

The town’s engineering firm Tibbets Engineering, however, is calling for more repair work than the state is planning to do.

Selectmen briefly discussed the issue at its Dec. 28 meeting, and Town Administrator Timothy King said that Tibbets Engineering is calling for more work to the span’s abutments.

“We observed during our site visit that the repair made 11 years ago was not properly performed and the cover of grout is soft and falling away in the majority of the tidal zone areas,” the engineering firm wrote in a letter to the town.

Although the letter from Tibbets was lengthy and technical, the issues touched upon are relatively minor, according to King.

“It is not an impending tragedy. It is maintenance,” King said.

Concerned resident Wayne Sunderland, a former planning official in Dartmouth, had a more serious take.

“It is falling apart. It is not getting better and it won’t get better,” Sunderland said. Sunderland said he was born in the mid-1930s, around the time the Cape Cod Canal bridges were built. Sunderland said those bridges are in much better shape and are not showing the same signs of disrepair that the 2005-rebuilt Hix Bridge is showing.

After the selectmen’s meeting, Selectmen Chairman R. Michael Sullivan would not further comment, citing ongoing negotiations with the state DOT.

In November, state DOT representative Shane Souza and MassDOT consultant Peter Wu met with selectmen and said the repair plan should allow the bridge to last for another 50 years, which was the original plan a decade ago.

Souza said that the fiberglass jackets and grout did not work as planned a decade ago. Souza said the state DOT will send a team to a use steel jackets and epoxy grout to better hold the columns.

Souza indicated the state rarely gets involved in the repair of a town-owned span but will make an exception due to the issue that the town has encountered.